I wrote my first javascript application last night. I know it’s not very complex, its actually just a form handler. All the same though, I had wanted to write the handler in php, but that was not going to work as it would require the page to reload.
After I figured out I was using the wrong language it didn’t take long to find some tutorials and learn the basics. Knowing a little php and html of course helped a lot. Variables and whatnot work in pretty much the same way, so far the biggest difference is just that java is case sensitive.
The W3school did a wonderful of pointing me in the right direction.
Here is a list of their basic javascript examples. I highly recommend it.
